Slashdot Mirror
Could Amazon Reviews Be Corrupt?
adeelarshad82 writes "In the first academic study of its kind, Trevor Pinch, Cornell University professor of sociology and of science and technology studies, independently surveyed 166 of Amazon's top 1,000 reviewers, examining everything from demographics to motives. What he discovered was 85 percent of those surveyed had been approached with free merchandise from authors, agents or publishers. Amazon is encouraging reviewers to receive free products through Amazon Vine, an invitation-only program in which the top 1,000 reviewers are offered a catalog of free products to review. John Dvorak puts up an argument which hints that some of these Amazon reviews may be corrupt."
I trust this guy's review. It's absolutely true
Does anyone actually believe the reviews they read on Amazon, anyways? It's pretty easy to tell when someone's fronting a product.
Just because it's on the Internet?
It's nothing more than the digital version of Payola, but instead of air-time, the content producers get flattering reviews.
Should it be made just as illegal (or at least against Amazon policy)? Wouldn't do much good... radio stations long ago found ways around the anti-Payloa laws, and I suspect that Amazon (and its reviewers) will too.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Why is this guy still around? Seriously, is this "news"?
I can't believe I read that entire summary only to be lead into a link to a Dvorak column. It's like the slashdot version of being rick rolled. And I fell for it. Bravo samzenpus, bravo.
"UNIX is very simple, it just needs a genius to understand its simplicity." -Dennis Ritchie
...that I bought my Three Wolf Moon shirt on false promises, I will be quite put out.
--I'm so big, my sig has its own sig.
-- See?
I've written one or two Amazon reviews - normal reviews, quite positive, they were accepted.
Then I bought a DVD - a Nick Cave live in concert DVD - and I panned it. (There was a logo, "MC", on a black oval, BIG, and present ALL THE TIME through the whole video, in the top left - it ruined the DVD). I said - "don't buy it".
Amazon never posted that review.
I've thought for a long time that Amazon censors reviews - if it really pans the product, it doesn't get on the Amazon site. ALL the Amazon reviews are in that sense corrupt, because Amazon remove the really negative reviews. You only see the more positive reviews.
I still have a box of Three Wolf Moon tees from four years ago, provided by the manufacturer!
I've also had a review seemingly rejected (review was for an Asus Transformer screen protector that was just awful). I gave one thought as to why it never showed up, but until now I never looked back. Perhaps Amazon just removes reviews it thinks won't be 'useful' at all, and seem more like complaints that won't ever be 'useful' to others looking to read reviews.
The more you know, the more you have to say and the more you should listen.
... reviews on the Internet can be false? Holy Crap!
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
But, in contrast, I've read a lot of negative (and sometimes incredibly stupid) reviews that got published with no problem at all.
Like the story talks about, I've also been approached by a company to give a review on Amazon in exchange for a free duplicate of the product. On personal ethics grounds, I rejected their offer and never wrote a review. I never would have thought that the number of people approached was anywhere near as high as the article claims, though.
For any online reviews I:
Check the distribution.
Ignore the "top reviewers" completely.
Sort ascending.
Read the worst reviews, up to the middle reviews.
I was invited to join the Amazon Vine program when I was somewhere in the 2,000-3,000 range in terms of reviewer rank, so it's definitely not the "top 1,000 reviewers". Every review that results from the Vine program has a green highlighted link on the review stating it's from the Vine Program with a "What's this?" link that people can use to find out what it's about. So it's made very clear when a reviewer got a free copy to play with.
Technically, all the "free" products are still owned by Amazon, so they could ask for them back at some point. Some large items like exercise equipment are loaned only for 30 days and then picked up. Certainly some Vine members probably eBay everything valuable they get, but this is clearly against the terms of the program.
Books are sometimes un-edited pre-release copies without final art or perhaps printed in black-and-white, as any book reviewer might get.
I've written five star and one star vine reviews, and Amazon accepts all of them.
It's fun to actually get some benefit from posting about stuff you like. Free stuff to review on Amazon, free add-free Slashdot for having really good karma, etc.
It's a system with anonymity (or at least semi-anonymity) and the ability to disguise stacking the deck, either for or against a given product. Of COURSE people are going to try to game it.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
Yes, reviews can be shills, emails can be spam, phonecalls can be telemarketers, pages in magazines can be advertisements, etc.. But if you have any kind of a hard time identifying them as such, you've been living in a CAVE for the last generation or so. There's a lot of yahoos out there and you need to take everything with a grain of salt. You needed Dvorak to tell you THAT?
There is a series I liked. Unfortunately, it has a bunch of differing continuities and movies of varying quality, and amazon has saw fit to lump reviews all of these varying products into all of the series' products.
The result is that one movie from this series, which should only be getting 2 stars out of 5 (by the 7 reviews that are directly about it) are instead inflated to 4.5 stars by the other 40 product reviews there that are actually refering to different products within that series. Since most people don't sit there and look the reviews one by one, it's extremely misleading.
The other shortfall of amazon's system is the inability to give 0 stars. Minimum is 1. This also inflates the rating. One revies give gives one star to a product, another 5-stars, the result would be 3 stars instead of 2.5. Two people giving 1-star ratings, and one 5-star, results in 2.33, or it would look like 2.5 on Amazon's filled out stars. (If 0-star ratings were enable, the result would be 1.66 stars). 3 out of 5 should indicate "good", not simply fair, which traditionally is 2.5 stars. Basically, it's way too easy to have a 4+ star product on Amazon even if more than half the reviewers thought it sucked to varying degrees.
let me clarify the program details. You basically get a list once a month of about 20 items that you can pick 1 or 2 things from. This is supposedly targeted (Amazon has never explained how) based on your buying history but there are many times people who are single get offered diapers, or middle aged men being offered teen book series, etc. You have to review at LEAST 75% of what you get, which allows you to not review some things that you never get around to using or just don't feel like reviewing for whatever reason. The week after the monthly targeted newsletter the pile all the items onto one list and offer it to all the vine members, sort of like a left-overs pot-luck meal. Once again you can pick 2 items and the same 75% rule applies. You get to keep the merchandise whether you review it or not.
What is on the lists? Books mainly, with food and household items second, software third and then you will rarely get offered very nice things like digital cameras, etc to review. The nicer items are almost always quantity limited and the lists are first come, first serve so when they get sent out once a month there is often a race by some members to see what they can get. Most of us don't even look at the list until the next day when a reminder email gets sent out because we are busy people with better things to do than sit around hitting F5 waiting for the list to post.
All that being said one detail that seems to be missing is that all the reviews you submit for items received from the Vine program are tagged with a bright green sentence that says it was a "vine" program item that hyperlinks to explain what that means. So I don't quite get the shill type tone of the article. Amazon isn't forthcoming about the hows and whys of the choices of items or participants in the program but they are very honest about he reviews being solicited. FYI, I only had maybe 25 posted reviews and was in maybe the top 10,000 reviewers when I got invited so it is hardly limited to the top 1000.
For the curious, the nicest things I've gotten to review was an ipod docking stereo and a copy of Microsoft Office Pro 2010. Besides that it has been lots of interesting books from Warhammer 40k / Fantasy titles to some on Engineering that I found very handy for my bookshelf at work.
As a site increases in traffic, the review quality plummets sharply. What, really, is the difference between useless reviews and paid ones? I already have to sort through 300 worthless reviews to find a single comment with useful information and a fair assessment, what does it matter if some or even most of them are advertisements?
I wrote a few Amazon reviews, then noticed a review that had absolutely no bearing on the item being reviewed. I reported it and Amazon stated that they found no reason to remove the review. I replied with full detail outlining how unrepresentative the review was and how misleading it was to consumers. I received a reply stating that it didn't violate their review policies, and that they wouldn't hear any more complaints about the issue. I forwarded the specific details out of their own publicly posted review policy that were violated, and received a "We'll take a look at this", which was obviously a brush off. Months later, no response and the fraudulent review remains.
I've henceforth removed all of my reviews, and I forward my clients to Newegg instead. Newegg's customer service has been better anyway.
While this may not be directly related to the story presented in TFA, it does speak to the lack of integrity in the Amazon review process when obviously false or misplaced reviews are allowed to remain, even when pointed out and explained to a human being (as opposed to a automatic responder).
Anyone complaining about Amazon reviews has too much time on their hands. Yes, you can see the comments of the professional reviewers. They are identified and mostly are middle of the road summaries. They don't pump it up and they don't warn you away. I skip over the usually lengthy professional reviews, they are worthless.
People provide great reviews, pro and con, on Amazon. I count on it to get the real scoop. I have rarely been mislead by it. It's the best out there, as I google for info and Amazon usually has the best reviews on it.
I've written one or two Amazon reviews - normal reviews, quite positive, they were accepted.
Then I bought a DVD - a Nick Cave live in concert DVD - and I panned it. (There was a logo, "MC", on a black oval, BIG, and present ALL THE TIME through the whole video, in the top left - it ruined the DVD). I said - "don't buy it".
Amazon never posted that review.
I've thought for a long time that Amazon censors reviews - if it really pans the product, it doesn't get on the Amazon site. ALL the Amazon reviews are in that sense corrupt, because Amazon remove the really negative reviews. You only see the more positive reviews.
I've written about 2 dozen reviews on Amazon, two of them had a 1-star rating, two of them had a 2 star rating, and they were all published. One of my 1-star reviews was quite scathing, yet it's still there. I've seen lots of 1 star reviews for products (even ones that were not relevant to the product like "I bought a somewhat similar item from a different manufacturer and it broke in 2 days, SO STAY AWAY FROM THIS SHODDY PRODUCT!!!"... so I assumed Amazon doesn't check the content reviews at all.
You can write it, but there's no guarantee they'll post it.
The reality is they mostly get posted, as long as you write factually and not too emotionally with a wide range of curse words.
I have never had a negative review not posted on Amazon. Remember, it's not Amazon getting the free things, it's just some of the reviewers...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Amazon reviews are not genuine? Bull shite! Now where's my three wolf moon shirt.
-- Flame me and I will happily flame you back. Bring it!
They pay people to give good reviews. It's called "Amazon Vine". You can safely ignore any Amazon Vine review you ever see - unfortunately you cannot filter them out.
I'm in Vine. I occasionally get a free book or food item, and then review it (that's the deal). My reviews are clearly (and automatically) tagged as 'Reviewed as part of Amazon Vine program'.
Looking back at my reviews I don't see where I've been any more charitable to Vine products than products I bought myself. In fact, I seem much less likely to rate them five stars - the barrier to entry is lower so I'll order a free product when I might not have paid for it. Though it's still self-selecting in that I won't order anything I don't think I'll like in the first place, so most of the reviews are four or five (but definitely not all).
And before you get too jealous, remember that reading the book and writing a decent review is a significant amount of work. /Having/ to do a review of something you're supposed to be enjoying can turn it into work. Wah wah wah, but it's not all roses and unicorns.
Probably, yes.
I stopped reading after seeing it was from John Dvorak.
string.Empty();
How else would Dianetics have more than 2 stars than if the whole process was corrupt?
(1) If you rely only the reviews from the vendor or the manufacturer sites, there is something wrong with you.
(2) There is nothing keeping any reviewer at any time from being approached in or outside of the Vine system. Prior to Vine, there were obvious reviews pushed by manufacturer's, even some literally spewing the same lines from the product pages themselves on items that were just released. With Vine, you know more about the conditions of the review actually than some random person reviewing.
(3) How often do you really buy a product looking at reviews then deciding to buy them, as opposed to knowing what you want, and then running a froogle search? I usually know what I want to buy, Amazon doesn't help me. If I want a Spyderco knife, I'm not looking at the Amazon reviews, I'm looking at knife forums. If I'm looking for a LED flashlight, I'm looking at the flashlight forums. Home theater equipment, AVSforum or whatever. I don't look at motherboard reviews on Newegg, I look to see what people think of them on the PC sites, and even then, I know those posts may not be slanted.
Even more, I often come across an industry guy, like the agent for the company, who will point me elsewhere, several times to competitor's products, because they know that honesty (since I verify it with a buy and confirm the product's performance, easy to do with knives for example) will direct me to one of the products in their line later on.
(4) When have review systems ever been shown to be corrupt in the first place anyways? I remember when I was reading software reviews, I learned that most reviewers receive stacks of software for free to use surrounding the one product they often then end up reviewing. Years later, why would anyone even perceive such "insider" influence isn't happening? It's like buying a house where the real estate agent for the buyer and seller are supposed to be independent of the builder--if you believe that to be true, you're nuts.
Top 1000 reviewers slanted? Targetted? Getting free stuff? No shit. You honestly need a freaking study to tell you this, or is it merely that someone wasted time to do run the numbers to show the politics of buying/selling?
5 star review - check
"Top 500" reviewer - check
Gushing, glowing review - check
Reviewer has made hundreds of other 5 star reviews - check
Chance it's a corrupt review: 100.1%
Look at this prolific "reviewer"
If a 5-star review initially gets people to make a shit purchase, I'm not seeing where the likelihood of a flood of negative reviews won't balance out any astroturfing or shilling. I can see it happening in a low volume item, where a few saps buy something crappy after reading a fake review, and then don't come back to warn away other shoppers, so the cycle continues. I wish they gave example items, or somehow polled customers who felt they fell prey to fake reviews.
Also, does the 85 percent statistic mean they've accepted some kind of gift or freebie, or just that they were offered them? TFA isn't clear.
It could very well be that creators of the items amazon sells hire people to say that negative reviews are "not helpful" and if a review receives too many not helpful it gets yanked..... not amazon directly manipulating the reviews, but it would show that their review system can be manipulated.
Monstar L
I know for a fact that all those reviews for the Three-Wolf-Moon shirt are true. I felt the power of 3 wolfpower during last month's full moon. Nothing could quench my thirst but 1 gallon, 128 fl oz of Tuscan whole milk.
I'm an Amazon Vine member. I was told that I became a member by the number of "helpful" votes my comments got.
Most of my reviews for things I buy are positive - but I research before I buy things.
As for Amazon giving me things to review; it's true.
Each month or so, I get a list of things I can order (for free, with no shipping charges). As long as I review 75% of the items I receive, I can participate in the program.
I fully believe that the "top 1,000 reviewers" part is untrue. I can't see any way that I'm a top 1,000 reviewer.
I just checked, and I'm in the top 8,000. However, I have over 300 helpful (out of about 400) votes.
1) They place a "Vine Voice" tag in my profile, and by each review - even if I pay for the product
2) They place a "Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program" by each review I do for Vine (free product)
Mostly I get *review copies* of books. These are pre-press, and the same ones that go to reviewers (hmmm). They are printed on cheap paper, are not hardbound, and clearly marked as "not final copy". I occasionally get a small electronic device, but usually a $10 to $20 item. The most valuable item I received was a popular piece of office productivity software.
I have no moral issue with receiving these items. It's the same as sending review items to book reviewers, bloggers, journalists, etc.
The reviewed items are clearly marked that I didn't pay for them. I have given 5 star and 3 star reviews.
The process is pretty transparent.
I've written 11 reviews, all of which have been accepted (most on CDs I liked or mostly liked and why)
a 1-star, which I later revised to a 2-star. (so that's not a "wish i could give zero" case), a 3, 3 4-stars and 6 5-stars
22 out of 25 people found my reviews helpful.
My reviews are fairly detailed and on-topic; less-detailed but still on topic is fine by me.
I've seen well-done bad reviews and well-done good reviews.
sometimes I see stuff 1-starred for irrelevant reasons
Then again, this is for pretty common CD's; anything with a low volume of reviews is a problem.
Suggestion: a 10-star system: allows for more fine-grained reviews, and halving the can't-give-zero skew
(Sometimes I've wondered whether I want to mark that 7/10 as 3/5 or 4/5, for instance.)
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Remember when amazon.ca displayed real names instead of logins for a day in 2004 due to a glitch?
The articles about it have a bad habit of disappearing, so I archived them here:
http://ciaran.compsoc.com/amazon-reviews-are-fake.html
I often look at Amazon reviews when deciding what books to get for language learning, but 80-90% of comments aren't credible. I still find it useful, but you have to know the limits of what you're looking at.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
We all need a good mindfuck every now and then.
"Tip of the iceberg" is all you'll get out of me...
http://www.amazon.com/Million-Random-Digits-Normal-Deviates/product-reviews/0833030477
I was approached by McGraw-Hill indirectly, via an investment forum, and invited to receive a free copy of a book, "The House that Bogle Built" if I'd review it online. Since I'm a fan of John C. Bogle, champion of index mutual funds and founder of Vanguard, I said sure. I liked the book, and gave it a good review. At the end of my review, I noted "Disclosure: the publisher sent me a complimentary copy."
Was I corrupted by the free book? Almost certainly, yes. Not that I sold my soul for a retail value of $28, but certainly, there was a the warm fuzzy comfortable aura of Vanguard fans together helping each other out.
But professional reviewers get free review copies, too. Why is it worse for amateurs to get them? Do people really think professionals are any less corrupt? I very much resent Dvorak's implication that it is somehow fine for professional reviews to accept free review copies because, he says, everybody knows it. (Do they?)
Should amateur reviewers who receive free books disclose that fact. Yes. Do they? Not usually. Should professional reviewers who receive free books disclose that fact? Yes, they should, explicitly, in every review. Do they? I've never seen it, have you?
Amazon Reader Reviews at least tell you whether or not the reviewer personally purchased a copy of the book from Amazon or not. If you want to screen out corrupted reader reviews, only read the reviews that say "Amazon Verified Purchase."
Want to screen out reviews from professional reviewers who haven't personally plunked down their own money for the book they're reviewing? Don't read any professional reviews at all.
I think Dvorak just doesn't like competition from amateurs.
At least I didn't sell my review copy, as professional reviewers often do.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Does anyone actually believe the reviews they read on Amazon, anyways? It's pretty easy to tell when someone's fronting a product.
I've noticed that there are a lot of fake negative reviews too. If the book touches on a political or social issue then the opponents of the book's perspective seem to organize a negative review campaign. I've seen books with equal numbers of positive and negative reviews overall, but if you only look at reviewers who are also identified as purchasers of the book then the reviews massively shift to the positive, sometimes 5:1 or 10:1 in favor. The content of the more negative reviews also suggest that they have not read the book, reciting talking points that are in direct contradiction to what the author actually wrote.
When I buy stuff on amazon, I always look at the 2, 3, and 4 star reviews for the best advice.
1-star and 5-star reviews are mostly crap. Sure, some are posted by shills and anti-shills. But plenty of them are posted by real customers who are simply clueless. They post a 5-star review because it's the first product of type X that they've ever bought, or they are deep in the throes of post-purchase rationalization. They post a 1-star review because they bought the wrong thing. Etc.
Just ignore the 1-star and 5-star reviews, and you'll find good info. 3-star reviews have the best information.
Problem solved.
One star reviews are crap and zero stars would just make it worst
If someone can't say one nice thing about the product, chances are they are a poor reviewer. Two and three star negative reviews are much more trustworthy because the reviewers will actually weigh the pros and cons of the product.
Your social job as a reviewer is not to "say one nice thing about the product," There are a lot of shitty products out there. E.g. How do you say something nice about a product that was DOA?
Fresh Whole Rabbit http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00012182G/ref=cm_cd_asin_lnk
"Liechtenstein is the world's largest producer of sausage casings, potassium storage units, and false teeth."
I am a Vine Reviewer, so of course you'll take this post with a grain of salt.
Just because the product is free, doesn't mean the system is rigged. In fact, I think one could easily argue that reviews from "professional" journalists/reviewers are far more prone to being rigged. After all, if they don't write positive reviews, the manufacturer can simply choose to not give them a product for review.
With Amazon Vine, I'm a "normal person" who doesn't write reviews for a living. The manufacturer does not get to choose who reviews their product. They do get to request demographics (for example age, technical affluency, interests, etc), so that someone who is familiar with PhotoShop might get to review a competing product -- rather than Grandma Gayle who can barely turn on her computer.
The Vine contract specifies that neither Amazon nor the manufacturer will remove the review unless it contains profanity, no matter if it is positive or negative. And, manufacturers cannot request their product be reviewed only by people with positive reviews. They're taking a chance.
I've reviewed about 50 items for Vine, ranging from soft drinks to luggage to a $400 unlocked Nokia smartphone. I'd say most of my reviews got a 3 or 4. (If you're curious, the $400 Smartphone got 2 stars.)
The only bias is that I didn't pay for the product I am reviewing. So, if one paid $400 for a crappy cell phone, one might give it a lower rating than if they got it for free. I don't think that's the case with most reviews, however. I know that when I review an item, I consider it's retail price against its value.
Let's also remember that every Vine review is clearly labeled as such. If one wanted to ignore them, they could.
-David
Funny, I thought he was in it for the money. Getting paid to do it is the very definition of a professional.
As a practical matter, Amazon's reviews constitute a rich source of information which, taken as directed, usually results in a good or excellent purchase choice. This is especially true when a product has been reviewed hundreds of times.
There is no way to eliminate bias from reviews, but as the numbers increase, it stands to reason that a smaller proportion of the reviews will be corrupt.
A truly standout product will collect many reviews, of which a high proportion will be 4 or 5. That is what to look for.
Products with smaller numbers of reviews are more difficult to judge,
As in most real-life situations, certainty is unachievable, but good information is available for those willing to put some effort into the selection process.
Like our immune system, the Amazon review process usually works well, typically degrades gracefully, and occasionally fails catastrophically.
Sigmund
Imagine a crazy, mixed-up world in which people who have a history of writing useful reviews are given free products to review! Clearly this new-fangled technology will destroy our society. Next thing you know, advertizers will start giving incentives to bloggers to talk about things interesting to their customers.
Perhaps they only let through negative reviews which look like they were written by morons - "look - we publish negative reviews. We're not biased!". But the reader thinks "that one-star review is stupid. The product must be better than that".
Hmmm?
One star review can absolutely be justified for many products out there. That's not the problem.
The problem is when people post a 1-star review of the product because e.g. they had some trouble getting it delivered to them. Especially when it's some relatively obscure thing for which there are no reviews - it throws the overall rating off quite a bit, and doesn't really tell anything about the product itself.
Worse yet is when some idiot writes a 1-star review along the lines of "wtf this thing doesn't work!1!!" because he didn't understand what he bought - because he didn't fully read the product description before clicking "Buy with 1-Click".
Did the DOA product have above average build quality? Otherwise I'd agree, but if you read tech reviews lately that seems to be all that reviewers even care about.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
That sucks a big one because I do like to read reviews. I never trust them all, but you hope there are more real reviews than garbage. Amazon needs to stop being a piece o crap and buying reviews.
How many stars should a product receive that breaks within a half hour of opening the product without being seriously abused by the purchaser?
Oh, 2 to 3 stars, I see that this is a scale that goes from good to great. Now, how would Mr. Sherman respond to that...
Seriously ? After all the "author review himself" and "amazon censor review" article ? If i want a review I look at a meta critic type site, which will gather professional reviews as well as users, and almostcertainly I will look at the spread of the professional review, and ask my friends/colleague about it. But trusting Amazon review be it user or whatnot ? Seriously ?
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
So, that's why those fanbois arguments end up going nuclear.
...the irrelevant John Dvorak states the obvious.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
On a related note, I've noticed that generally positive reviews get more "x people found this helpful" points than negative ones. Like if there's one black sheep of a comment which points the actual suckitude of the product, all the praise is more likely to overcome it. Maybe some collective altruism thing... Or, maybe people like to hear "nice things".
I've reviewed some stuff (less than I'd like, more than necessary too maintain life functions) over the years, and have a few nasty and brutish opinions.
Of the reviewed stuff, some of it I've paid for, some of it's been supplied by the maker or a retailer. Of the stuff supplied for review, some of it has been a loan, some of it has been keep-it-when-done, and there's not a simple relationship to whether it's cheap or expensive. I've more than once bought something intending to review it, sometimes I only realized I wanted to when I found it to be useful or interesting (having bought it for pure utility), and quite a few things, solicited or not, that I thought would make good review items turned out not to, because (say) they weren't much worth distinguishing in a crowded field, or just didn't excite me. No accounting for taste.
I wouldn't want to mislead anyone by making them think (oooh!) some specific thing that was false, and favor disclosure on that front, but if you think a review is slanted *because* the provided item was provided for free, then there's IMO a bigger problem than with the review. Whether an item has to be returned doesn't even seem to me to be a big differentiator: the set of people who get to be product reviewers overlaps with the set of people who (say) attend trade shows, which means they're bombarded with cheap and sometimes expensive tschotskes, everything from door prizes to sit-through-a-presentation tokens to (yes, I did this) a little coin that says you were curious or stupid enough to get tased. Anyone who's attended a LinuxWorld or similar has probably walked out with at least a promotional souvenir penguin of some kind -- or chosen not to ;)
Note that there's a lot of self-selection; if a hardware review site is offered or solicits an interesting piece of hardware to write about, it's probably not because they believe in advance that it sucks (or even is only middlin') -- just the opposite. I'd like to get a chance to sample an interesting keyboard or (oh, this would be nice) superior wireless access device because I'd like to take part as a happy user of something better than what's come before. There would be little point in giving a product I didn't like a positive review, or in straining to find fault in order to appear "objective" about a product that blows me away. (I'm thinking here of the first two generations of Das Keyboard, which I frankly thought were interesting but ultimately disappointing, and the still-wows-me Tom Bihn Checkpoint Flyer briefcase. The Checkpoint flyer I brought to the Bihn factory with some suggestions after a few months of use, and he -- Tom, his own self -- actually modified mine at my suggestion. I like the product and the company even better as a result, but I like a lot of the competition, too, because the world is interesting that way.)
"Caveat lector" seems appropriate, as you read *any* review you think to be too enthusiastic or one-sidely positive. Whether a product is paid for by the reviewer probably represents less of a gimme than pure *access* to most tech-world things worth reviewing. Just getting to experience new and interesting products is an interesting perq; getting to hang onto some of them as curios or even as often-used items is cool, but as far as my biased eyes can see not a good indicator of "corruption." When 5 or 12 or 96 hardware review sites all have reviews of a new product that appear on the same day (at the stroke of midnight, or suspiciously close), you can bet an NDA bargaining chip just expired. Does that mean "corruption" to you? Maybe it does -- but either way, you'll read the review knowing, or at least intelligently guessing, that there were communications between the product's maker and the reviewers, and that there was trade of access for exposure.
My point: don't assume evil, but also don't assume the same level of disinterest you might prefer in a platonic-solids kind of way; realize that everyone has biases (whether you consider them innocent, misguided, or invidious) and read reviews accordingly.
Ahem!
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
My favorite is from kids who were forced to write a book report on something and then posted it on Amazon (perhaps even as part of the assignment).
"I had to read Faulkner's xxxx for class, it was totally boring and long. It was stupid. The end.".... If Amazon considers that useful, then EVERYTHING is useful. I mostly use the reviews to try to find books that might be interesting to me to add to my "find" list. But they get more and more useless as you venture outside of literature. I was recently looking to buy a cheap, low powered, airsoft gun to teach some pigeons a lesson, and the reviews were around 99% of astroturf. It was actually somewhat shocking, with some guns had terrible reviews (it killed my dog, and ran away with my wife) had reference to the "far superior" gun sold by another vendor, except said superior gun was the exact same brand and model as the negatively reviewed one. I actually doubt that there was a single actual, legitimate, review on any of the products I looked at. It was academically interesting though, since most of the scammers actually put in decent negative bits, just to confuse some people into thinking the reviews were real.
Gah, I hate Amazon...
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
I don't trust the opinions of all the people I know, why would I (or any sane person) give a toss what a stranger thinks about something?
~_~ Not tonight, dear, I have a modem.
There are also reviewers selling their services as search engine optimizers. Their reviews are for google, not for amazon shoppers. Here's one (top 50 reviewer). Bills herself as "eBook Publishing Expert, Writer, SEO Consultant". Lots of 5-star ebook reviews to her name, with lots of tags. Lots of questionable 5-star reviews for those same titles.
Oh, come on. The so-called reviews on Amazon are there to sell more books; have you ever seen a completely honest advert?
I remember reading an article years ago about how a flub at Amazon accidentally revealed that authors were giving hagiograhical reviews to their own books under fake names.
I also remember reading something about authors coaxing groups of friends to publish reviews of new books.
Then there are the "civilians" who use the Amazon review section as social media, obviously ( sometimes even stated ) reviewing a book without having read it, having some of axe to grind with the politics, subject or author.
Interesting. Thanks for the tip. I'll remember to put my thumb over the "gimme" star next time I'm looking for stuff on amazon. (hmm. maybe I can come up with a CSS override...)
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
John Dvorak puts up an argument which hints that some of these Amazon reviews may be corrupt."
Ya think so huh? Of course they are corrupt. What a dumbass. /rancor
"We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
I was watching a recent documentary which showed, during a series of political 'training' sessions in DC, people being advised by the trainer to go on to Amazon and negatively review books (from a different political perspective) which they had never read. The speaker mentioned that it was something he did quite often in his spare time.
I also hate it when a book gets a negative or positive review because of 'shipping time' or something that has nothing to do with the content of the work itself.
I am also in Vine, and I don't think I am more generous to the free products that I get. In fact, it is sometimes the opposite, as Vine almost by definition provides things you don't really want, and I'm less likely to give a strong review to something I don't really want.
Membership in Vine makes me sensitive to the number of reviews each item on Amazon has, and I have recently noticed that the average number has increased dramatically. It used to be than an obscure or expensive item had 2-3 reviews. Now, virtually every item I look at has hundreds of reviews. Yesterday I called up a newly released $2500 camera lens to find that it already had almost 100 reviews. It feels odd to me, and I suspect that there may be astroturfing taking place on a massive scale, but I have no way to prove it.
If i look at some titles reviews, i am sure they are advertisements.
Hypothetically, let's suppose there is an evil, convicted, abusive, monopolist. Let's further suppose that monopolist has been caught red-handed astroturfing, and is known to hire "technology evangalists." Would it be a huge stretch to imagine that an uber-wealthy company, such as that, might play games with shills, and mod points and the like?
Does it take two to tango?
Would a drill sergeant make a lousy therapist?
Do woodchucks chuck wood?
If the book touches on a political or social issue then the opponents of the book's perspective seem to organize a negative review campaign.
How to use Amazon reviews:
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I find that the 2- and 3-star reviews are more informative than the 4- and 5-star reviews. They inevitably point out flaws which may or may not be important to me. Even if I agree with the negative review, sometime I buy the book anyway, as it may be worthwhile, flaws and all. Positive glowing reviews never tell me anything I need to know.
One of the first glimpses that i saw was when the guy from 'Security now' steve gibson, asked their listeners to rate up his amazon review about something (maybe the kindle, not sure now).
Thanks to that I quit listening to security now and became more aware of amazon reviews.
Jorge
I am also a Vine reviewer. Not sure how I wound up on the list other than the fact that I reviewed stuff before I was a Vine member. As you can see my reviews are across the board. Some of my reviews are judged useful and others are not. I can't see any incentive for lying unless they someday pull my Vine status. The only "influence" I could see is if folks felt beholden to Amazon for the free stuff to review. As a reviewer I do notice that few people appreciate reviews critical of the product and people reading book reviews prefer reviews with spoilers in them. Like other venues, the first review have the most influence and the same goes for the first video reviews.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Yeah, I'm no where near anything resembling a high rank, yet I got a Vine invite also. I rather enjoy the program (got some rather nice free stuff, and some crap too, all reviewed honestly), and Amazon makes the disclosure quite explicit.
One of the strengths of the Vine program (vs. vendors mailing stuff to random bloggers) is that vendors have zero leverage over Vine reviewers. A negative review does not in any way impact eligibility for future Vine-distributed products. (I've written some pretty scathing reviews for some of the stuff I've received, yet I just got a 2TB NAS box last month for review.
I will admit that the "This review provided through Vine" note was only after the FTC decreed it was deceptive not to make such a note. Prior to that, it was optional.
How do you know if you received a bad sample? You can contact the manufacturer or store and get it exchanged to see if you can get a new one. If you find they won't let you exchange or that it was still faulty, then you can include that information in an informative one star review.
If you say that it broke within half an hour and that is it, I will assume that the error was on the reviewer 9 out of 10 times especially if other reviews are more positive.
I just read a couple of 4-stars and a couple of 2-stars, and only venture into the 1's or 5's if I'm still not sure, but those I take at 25% of face value.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay